Newsletter

Lubbock music legend Hancock to show art at show

Give Butch Hancock three tools, and he might as well rule the world. It's amazing what he's been able to accomplish with a guitar, a camera and a ball-point pen.

Above: Butch Hancock will exhibit his gallery entitled "Dustbowls and Diamonds" tonight at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts. Inset: Several examples of Butch Hancock's photography will be featured in his exhibit.

Several examples of Butch Hancock's photography will be featured in his exhibit on Friday in Lubbock. (Zach Long)

Several examples of Butch Hancock's ball point pen art will be featured in his exhibit on Friday in Lubbock. (Zach Long)

Butch Hancock will exhibit his gallery entitled "Dustbowls and Diamonds" tonight at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts. (Zach Long)

Butch Hancock will exhibit his gallery entitled "Dustbowls and Diamonds" tonight at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts. (Zach Long)

Butch Hancock will exhibit his gallery entitled "Dustbowls and Diamonds" tonight at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts. (Zach Long)

Give Butch Hancock three tools, and he might as well rule the world. It’s amazing what he’s been able to accomplish with a guitar, a camera and a ball-point pen.

“I think it goes back to some of my early impressions in school,” Hancock recalled. “I remember hearing that you can’t spread yourself too thin. The instant I heard that, I thought what a great idea. My whole idea was to investigate and understand everything and not limit any specialization.”

Hancock, a Lubbock native and local music legend, is back in the Hub City today to give fans a look at some of his artistic creations through the years at “Dustbowls and Diamonds,” a show featuring his photographs and drawings. The event will take place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Farm 2 Market Arts @The Studio Projects (1010 Mac Davis Lane No. 1).

Hancock, a renown musician and songwriter and founding member of the Flatlanders band with Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, said he was approached by local artist Jeff Wheeler about having a show in Wheeler’s gallery.

“Jeff has been friends with the Flatlanders for years, and he was aware that I do art and so forth,” Hancock said. “We thought about doing something like this and started talking about it a year ago. He told me about his place and he thought it’s time to do it.”

Wheeler said he expects some 30 to 40 pieces of artwork and photography to comprise the display. Hancock’s work has been displayed in a number of exhibits at museums, galleries and restaurants around the state.

“I have been friends with Joe Ely for several years now,” said Wheeler, who is an artist in residency at the Louise Underwood Hopkins Center for the Arts. “What I am doing with my gallery is trying to use my space as a way to show famous artists with Lubbock ties who normally wouldn’t show in Lubbock.”

Wheeler’s first foray along these lines took place in January with a Joe Ely art display. “Butch is an obvious choice for this because so many people are aware of his great work.”

Hancock has complemented his musical artistry with visual artistry. On Thursday, he was on the campus of Texas Tech discussing space and the horizon in a tip of the cap to his stint in the school’s College of Architecture and his affinity for creating ball-point pen architectural drawings, a craft he began practicing in 1969.

“Everything kind of feeds everything else,” Hancock said of the way his varied pursuits intertwine in his life. “I think that’s the beauty of investigation in any area of study really, not just the arts. When I was studying architecture, it occurred to me when you are learning about something, you study it, of course, you try to understand it completely, but then you should study something totally different and find out why it will help you. You learn about principles at work in other areas and find they apply to your preferred area of study.”

Hancock, who believes “art leads you nowhere but within,” enjoys the creation process, whether it’s songwriting, photography or drawing. The result is always unique. It’s similar to the way he lives life.

“You wake up and wonder, wow, out of all the billions of things that can be done, what will be done today,” he said. “That’s a great, enlivening kind of thought stream to be in. It allows you to be open for lots of things. I don’t believe it (the artistic process) boils down to pleasure and pain. You work through that to get to a higher ground where you have better vision of what you’re working on.

“There’s pain involved – sometimes literally pain, sometimes just struggling and sometimes mental effort – but you’re trying things and succeeding and failing. Success says you can do something. Failure says this is something I didn’t think of and blew it, but there’s where you begin to grow as a human being.”